Error code 19 - Your registry might be corrupted

Symptoms

The Component Object Model (COM) ports that you created during the installation of a multi-port serial adapter do not start, and they are listed in Device Manager with the following error message: Your registry might be corrupted.

Cause:

This behavior can occur because many virtual COM ports that are hosted by this type of hardware rely on the standard serial port driver (Serial.sys) that is included with Windows 2000. This driver, however, can start only if there are hardware COM ports that require the driver.

Resolution:

To work around this behavior, enable at least one serial/COM port in the computer's BIOS so that the Serial.sys file can load properly.

MORE INFORMATION

Event Viewer does not display an error message that indicates that the serial driver has not loaded because some computers do not have built-in serial/COM ports. If you change the ErrorControl value in the registry for the serial driver to 0x1 , a warning is displayed that indicates that there are no devices that require the driver.

In Device Manager, on the View menu, click Display Hidden Devices to observe whether or not the serial driver has loaded.